Saturday 14 January 2012 08.27 EST
First published on Saturday 14 January 2012 08.27 EST

Embarrassed officials in the Andaman Islands are desperately attempting to deal with the fallout from reported abuse of tribal women, after revelations in the Observer that they were being exploited for the benefit of paying tourists.

Video footage capturing the daily "human safaris" through the forest home of the islands' recently contacted Jarawa tribe has provoked worldwide outrage. The footage, in which an off-camera police officer orders partly naked Jarawa women to dance for tourists in return for food, was described in India as a "national disgrace".

The video has been viewed by more than half a million people on the Observer website alone – and millions more in India, where excerpts prompted a national debate over the treatment of the tribe. Some Indian television news channels were warned they would face legal action from the Andaman administration if they continued to show the video. The notices were widely ignored.

India's home minister, P Chidambaram, ordered the Andaman administration to arrest whoever had filmed the video and the tour operator involved. The Indian government had earlier demanded a swift explanation from the authorities in Port Blair, the Andaman capital. Chidambaram was due to fly to the islands this weekend to discuss the matter.

The scale of the problem is reflected by a statement from the Andaman police, in which they said that they had arrested almost 1,000 people for interacting with the Jarawa in the past five years, including 15 last week.

Police are understood to have already questioned a tour operator who was recorded by the Observer explaining how police could be bribed for 15,000 rupees (about £190), as well as a tour driver mentioned in the report, but both men were released without charge.

In a statement and interviews given by the director general of police, SB Deol, the force claimed the video was 10 years old, and accused the Observer of inciting the women to dance. But according to the home minister, an analysis of the video – believed to have been shot by a tourist – showed that it could not possibly be more than four years old. Academics who have worked with the Jarawa say they believe it is more recent. Other sources in the Andamans suggest it was shot two years ago.

Other recent footage has also surfaced on video-sharing websites, including one supplied to the Observer by a tour operator in which a voice, believed to be that of a policeman, tells semi-naked girls: "Nacho, nacho" – "dance, dance".

Credit: Giulio Frigieri

The Indian news channel said it had a copy of a letter sent as late as September 2011 to the tribal welfare department warning that a video had been shot by a named travel company and while the information was handed to the police no action was taken.

Police registered a case under several Indian laws, including the information technology act, the prevention of atrocities act and the protection of aboriginal tribes act. Andaman police claim the women in the video had been induced to dance through the offer of food and other items, and publication of the video was a deliberate insult intended to humiliate them.

The police force turned its fire on two campaigning groups, Survival International and Search, who have championed the Jarawa's rights. The director general accused them of paying themselves large salaries from funds for the tribe.

"We have been campaigning for the Jarawa tribe in spite of many threats from different sections of society. It is sad that, instead of supporting the organisation, the A&[Andaman and Nicobar] police is trying to malign our image," said the director of Search, Denis Giles.

Survival's director, Stephen Corry, said the police should accept that safaris were continuing to operate on the Andaman Trunk Road, which runs through the Jarawa reserve, and tackle the problem instead of trying to discredit the reports. "The only reason that they are still occurring is the Andaman Trunk Road through the Jarawa reserve. Ten years after the Indian supreme court ordered the road to be closed, it's shocking that the Andaman administration is defying this order by keeping it open. The government could end human safaris today – by closing the road," he said.

Officials in the Andamans say they are looking into opening an alternative sea route, which would avoid the reserve.